Thursday, 31 January 2013

Good to see that the DfT hasn't lost its skill at pretending a pig's ear is a triumph.In today's press release from the Department on the future of the C2C, FGW, FCC and Southern franchises is the following gem from McLoughlin..."As always our priority is to ensure these changes will not impact on services or our commitment to improving the railways. Our latest step towards delivering a high-speed rail network which will link many of our major cities by a new fleet of state-of-the-art trains is testament to how we are delivering on that commitment."Presumably this is ministerial confirmation that the franchising debacle will now also not be resolved until the late 2020s?

UPDATE: This from Chionanthus Virginicus...Aha - we're going to have "state of the art" trains for HS2 are we?

So we must infer that DfT

have the necessary technical clairvoyance

have drawn up the specification of the trains

have resolved any inter-operability issues with the "conventional" railway

An Epiphany moment... could they have been blinded by a bright object which has stopped over a birthplace in the North East?